March 19, 2012. 18 birds of 6 species; 4 recaps. New species Brown Creeper and Eastern Phoebe. Just like yesterday, it was pretty good today until hour 2.5 when it dropped to nothing until the last run when we picked up a few more birds. The fog rolled in from the lake around hour 4, and it lingered. Emily and I have been reviewing molts so we will be ready for Pyle. It’s been pretty hard to find molt limits on most of the birds we’ve been getting, but we have found a few and are starting to practice coding the feather tracts like Pyle did last time. Our recaps are worth mentioning today — three chickadees and one White-throated Sparrow. Several curmudgeons (including today’s BIC!) grumbled that we had quite possibly banded every single available chickadee last fall, so we were not surprised this spring to start with already banded birds. We were surprised, however, to the the (probably local?) White-throated Sparrow and we wonder how long it will be before we start to see unbanded migrants. Andrea and Emily Patterson

16 new of 8 species; 1 recap. New species Mourning Dove, Golden-crowned Kinglet, American Robin, American Tree Sparrow, Fox Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, and Northern Cardinal. We had a good day, especially given that we only had 8 nets open for most of the morning. We heard a Winter Wren and flushed three woodcock. Red-bellied Woodpecker and flickers were calling all morning, along with White-breasted Nuthatches, and (we think) a titmouse. It was slow enough that we didn’t need help, but interesting enough to keep us occupied. It was good to be STARTED on the spring banding season!